In recent years, in view of rise of labor cost, midnight operation or the like, there have been adopted a manned/unmanned store system wherein automatic vending machines for commercial articles, automatic renting machines for videocassette tapes and the like are equipped in a store. This kind of system requires no permanently-stationed clerks for selling and renting commercial articles.
Where such a system is employed, it is convenient to use prepaid cards or other cards for purchase of commercial articles instead of using cash. Prepaid cards that are generally used are, however, of magnetically recorded type and have no capacity of storing a large amount of information. Thus, this kind of cards are not suitable for use in such stores as selling and renting a variety of commercial articles.
On the other hand, where rental shops are concerned for conducting renting/returning of recorded media such as videocassette tapes automatically, the use of automatic renting machines becomes wide spread. In this case also, settlement of rental fees is carried out by using the prepaid membership card. Since the generally-used membership card is of magnetically recorded type, the amount of information that can be stored therein is low, thereby restricting applications thereof.
As mentioned above, the generally-used prepaid card or membership card is of magnetically recorded type, and is restricted in recording capacity thereof. Thus, it is not suitable for use in a store system where a variety of commercial articles are sold and rented.
In addition, where the magnetically-recorded membership card is used in an automatic renting machine for recorded media such as videocassette tapes, such a card is limited in the amount of information that can be recorded therein and therefore is restricted in its applications.
Especially, in the case of automatic renting machines, when recorded media are for adults only, it is required to realize rental prohibition so as not to allow minors to rent such recorded media freely. For this end, adult and minor cards are generally issued as membership cards. However, where there are two kinds of cards issued, after a customer becomes adult, the membership card for this person must be changed to be the adult card, which is inconvenient.
Further, in the case of automatic renting machines, a general system is such that the exclusive card is issued for each of the renting machines and that the upper limit of the available number (renting number) is predetermined. For example, the maximum number of renting is set to be three, and renting of articles more than that number at the same time is prohibited. However, if the same customer holds utilization cards for individual rental machines, he or she is able to rent videocassette tapes or the like more than the maximum number.